God Is The Doer

The word yoga means union, uniting the higher with the lower self. In meditation, Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore received the word ‘Unity’, which he interpreted to mean union with the One Power and Presence in the Universe: God. As part of our journey in knowing and expressing that oneness, yoga teaches that individuals tend toward one of three paths, based on their personality: The Yoga of Wisdom, Devotion or Service. As part of his series ‘Unity & Yoga’, Justin Epstein explores each of these paths. In this video: The Yoga of Service: God Is The Doer

Full Text: (Transcription by Victoria Barkely)

(Let’s) take it a step deeper now. The deeper step is where we, in Karma Yoga—the practice of the path of service, or activity without attachment to the fruits—are seeing ourselves, as God the doer. You are simply a vehicle, an instrument, through which God is doing everything. That’s a deeper level of freedom. That is Karma Yoga in its essence. It is seeing God as the doer. “I seek to see myself as simply a vehicle, an instrument.”

So right now, God is speaking to you through the vehicle Justin, and God is listening through you. God is speaking to God. When we love, God is loving God, in the other. We are simply vehicles, instruments.

The great healer, Joel Goldsmith, (an author of more than 30 books and internationally known as a healer), at times in his life—probably because of his upbringing, probably because of his conditioning—would go into some sort of deep despair and feel like a failure. And once, late in his life, he was going through one of those incidents of where he was feeling like a great failure when he had a realization.

Spirit spoke to him and told him, “You are not a failure, and you are also not a success. You are simply an instrument, a vehicle. God is the doer!”

Imagine what life could be like if you no longer needed to fear failure and you no longer needed to be attached to success, but you were simply an instrument, a vehicle, through which God expressed. (And you’d realize that at all times) you are doing the best that you can.

This is where it gets tricky, because it feels like we are doing the work.

You know you make mistakes, you learn from them, you grow and unfold… It feels like we’re doing the work but really God is doing everything and we are vehicles through which the work gets done.

So, it doesn’t become about “me” and “I.” So that whole fear of coming to the end of a life and being disappointed about you know “I didn’t do everything I could,” or “I failed at this or that,”—I didn’t do any of it.

My success would be on my death bed going “I did the best I could to be a good instrument, a good vehicle through which God could express. I did my best to say yes to God, to follow my guidance.”

And even that can be a trap.

It has been a trap for me. “Is this God’s guidance? Is this what God wants me to do? Did I hear it right?” No, even that is God’s responsibility. If you are willing to be an instrument and you are willing to follow guidance, ultimately even that’s God’s responsibility.

All we can do is: do the best we can, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, to be a willing vehicle and to let God be God in us.

Mother Theresa said, “I am just a pencil in the hands of God, writing a love letter to the world.” And that is the path of service, the path of Karma Yoga. It is a pathway that leads to deeper union, communion with God, as do all of the paths.

Ultimately, these three paths merge, help one another; work with one another, to lead to inner communion, to union with source. God bless you. Namaste.